Iniquity

The Calendar adapted for England requires the celebration of the feast of St Bede today, but as we have thousands of saints, there are several remembered every day. From the martyrology today:

At Salerno, the death of blessed Pope Gregory VII, a most zealous protector and champion of Church liberty.

O, that all our leaders were as inspiring as this saintly pontiff.

If I were to pick a century to live in, the eleventh would not be my first choice. Gregory - whose birth-name was Hildebrand - had no choice, and the thought of being a prelate in that era is such a horrible concept! In the middle of that century, the Church was in a complete mess. There were several people claiming to be popes (and one pope who was deposed twice, managing to get himself re-elected time after time), presbytries known-world-over were becoming dens of iniquity, secular leaders were dismantling ecclesiastical authority and worse: goodly monks were trying to make everyone all holy! The calls of St Peter Damian and the like, demanding sanctity and good behavior, fell mostly on deaf ears, but Gregory VII was one of those who listened an, unfortunately, suffered the consequences.

This is the mediaeval period. One thing which annoyes me about liberals, especially Churchy liberals, is that they know nothing of history (which is probably why they are the way they are), and when they do, they get it wrong. They often complain about the Church and its exterior features being mediaeval, yet most of what the Church looks like today comes out of the late fifteenth century and beyond - the Church, by this very definition, is modern, not mediaeval. Some of these people even complain that the Church is mediaeval - I'd say transcendant - without contemplating that the actual mediaeval period has produced a suspicious number of saints and sinners. The Church is - and always has been - the Body of Christ, the people of God in mystical union with Christ and each other, and thus it automatically reflects contemporary society. I don't doubt that the Church of the eleventh century was exactly the same as the Church of today, underneath all the layers of smoke and damask.

I don't wish to present a biography - there is just far too much to write about this man - but needless to say, he tried to reform the Church's behaviour and put the emperor in his place. He is a good reminder that, as Joseph Ratzinger once said, truth is not determined by a majority vote. If it did, Greogry would be one of just a handful. He stood by the Church and Christ as others abandoned it - Apocalypse-esque - and demonstrates if one decides to that, you are punished in this life, but with the grace of God, we shall eventually be victorious.

We don't get our reward in this life. No matter what we truly desire here, we shall not be fully satisfied. This is something - myself especially included - we need to remember every day: Utopia ain't gonna happen before we die, folks. I have kept a devotion to this saint ever since I continuously wrote about him when I studied Church history at university, so I think I'm going to be naughty and exempt myself from the local calendar and keep the feast of this Pope.

On his deathbed in 1085, according to legend, Gregory said: "I have loved justice and hated iniquity; therefore, I die in exile."